Yet folly of follies; how lightly are such well arranged plans broken into. Through a woman came all this scheming, by a woman's hand it was all swept into naught. Both innocent of intention, both ignorant of effect. Yet it was true. Jerome and I, as we then thought, disposed our pieces with great care and circumspection, advanced the pawns, guarded the king, and made ready for the final checkmate. Yet a woman's caprice overturned the board, scattered our puppets far and wide, and by the tyranny of an accident recast our game on other lines, without rule or rhyme or reason.
CHAPTER IX
MADEMOISELLE
In the morning of the following day we were engaged about a business which troubled me no little. Had it not been for Jerome I fear I had never come through it at all with credit.
First, we repaired to another house which Jerome possessed in a more fashionable quarter, and thither by his directions came a fawning swarm of tailors, boot-makers, barbers, wig-makers; vendors of silken hose and men with laces, jaunty caps, perfumes—it was a huge task, this making a gentlemen of me—as Jerome phrased it.
I worried over it grievously in the beginning, but at length sullenly delivered myself into his hands, murmuring an abject prayer for the salvation of my soul. That, at least, was not to be remodeled by all their fashionable garniture. These heated discussions concerning what I was to wear were not for me to put a voice in. Verily, I knew nothing and cared naught for the cut of a shoe my Lord of Orleans had made the style, nor did it matter whether my coat was slashed with crimson or braided with golden furbelows. Like some wretch a-quivering of the palsy I heard the learned doctors wrangling over my medicine, which they must needs hold my nose to make me swallow. For all their biases and twistings I knew full well they could carve no sprig of fashion from so rough a block as I. Certes, I must now have a squire to fasten this new harness well upon me, for by my word, I knew not one garment from the other by sight of it. Jerome went off into fits of laughter seeing me trying to struggle into things I could not even guess the use of.
When the worst was over, late in the afternoon, I felt like a play-actor, dressed for his part, but who, for the life of him, could not recall one syllable of his speech, nor breathe because of his wig. Jerome surveyed me with a half-critical, half-approving scrutiny, until I essayed to buckle on my sword.
"By my lady, fine sir, that dingy old cutlass will never do for a drawing-room. As well a miller's dusty cap to cover those glorious borrowed curls of thine; we must get thee one shaped in the mode." This quip exterminated my patience.
"To the foul fiend with all this everlasting style of thine. I know this blade, have tested it on many fields, and by all the gods at once I'll not replace it with a silly toy."